PRO FOOTBALL; Jets Struggle to Keep Martin Running Smoothly

Perhaps the most eye-popping comment during John Abraham's screed last Sunday was the complaint that the Jets gave the ball to Curtis Martin too much.

There never used to be too much with Martin. Kevin Mawae once said the Jets should give him the ball until he dropped. But Abraham's comments were the starkest yet on the Jets' most perplexing issue: how do you have one of the game's greatest running backs and still have one of the most unproductive running games?

And today in San Diego, the Jets face the second-best rushing defense in the league.

''It hasn't been what I've wanted it to be,'' Martin said. ''It hasn't been what the team has wanted it to be. We're not playing consistently. We're getting in games where we have to pass the ball. We're getting in games where we're behind. We're not doing too much where we're consistent.''

The Jets' failure to establish the run was never more apparent than it was against the Browns. Martin had 9 rushes for 46 yards in the first half, for an impressive 5.1-yard average, with one 15-yard run. It was the model for effective running. There were runs inside and outside, several short ones and then long bursts.

But the beginning of the end came on the first play of the third quarter, when Martin was thrown for a 1-yard loss. Martin was stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage two more times in the second half, giving him 17 rushes for zero or negative yardage in the last three games.

Cleveland is rated 27th in run defense in the league and didn't even put an eighth man in the box to stop the run. ''It just came apart,'' said Martin, who finished with 65 yards.

Mawae said: ''It's completely frustrating. As a player, you're controlling everything about the game in the first half, and in the second half you feel like you have no control over anything.''

The Jets promptly lost control of what had seemed a certain victory.

Martin has never had a sub-1,000-yard season in his seven-year career. Last season, when the Jets used the same conservative offense they are using now, Martin ran for a career-high 1,513 yards and had seven 100-yard games.

Through seven games this season, Martin has 352 yards rushing, averaging 50.2 yards.

In the early games, he was slowed by a severely sprained ankle he sustained in the opener. He has just one 100-yard game (against Kansas City), and to reach 1,000 yards this season, he must average 72 yards a game.

The Chargers are giving up an average of just 78.7 yards a game rushing. And the rest of the schedule holds more potential pitfalls. Denver has the best run defense in the league. Miami, next week's opponent, has the seventh-ranked defense, Oakland the ninth.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Abraham's comment is that the Jets really didn't keep giving it to Martin. After the first rush of the second half lost a yard, the Jets passed on their next two downs and punted.

The pattern was repeated in later drives, and that -- to Abraham's dismay -- might have been part of the problem.

The Jets' offensive coordinator, Paul Hackett, admits that the running game works best with repetition, so that the offensive line can get into the rhythm of run blocking and Martin can become accustomed to reading the defense and seeing holes. Patience is required.

Hackett does not have it.

''What happens to us sometimes is I get a little impatient when a play doesn't make what it should,'' he said. ''As long as you have control of the game, it's not a problem. In the second half, we were trying to get control of the game with the running game. The very first play, we lost a yard. If you're going to be successful, you have to keep running and that's a lot harder to do than it is to say.

''In the first half, the offense was probably the most up-tempo that we've been all year, the most freewheeling. You come out in the second half and try to recapture that rhythm, and we didn't.''

The personnel changes on the offensive line have certainly contributed to the unevenness in the running game. The early use of the spread offense and the emphasis on passing also tested a group that would prefer to run on every play.

Mawae has bitten his tongue when asked what has gone wrong, but it is clear when he says ''you have to block whatever is called'' that there is not always universal agreement on the play-calling. When the offense was struggling in the early games, Mawae said he thought the ball should go to Martin, and that has not changed.

''Guys on the line are creatures of habit,'' Mawae said. ''If it's working, just keep doing it. If you've got to call it 15 times in a row, that's what we would like. Understanding we can't do that all the time, we have to be able to adjust to other situations.''

Early last week, Coach Herman Edwards said part of the rushing woes might be caused by offensive linemen occasionally struggling to hold their blocks.

Mawae disagreed, but the offensive line coach, Doug Marrone, said that was one of the factors contributing to the line's troubles.

In the first half against Cleveland, the running game was marked by good blocks and good cuts. In the second half, the blocks were not as clean, and the holes were not as large.

''We have gotten better in some areas,'' Marrone said. ''Now we have to get it all five at once. You can get four great things going on, and all it takes is one person to not get it done exactly right, and you have a breakdown.''

Of greatest concern to Hackett is the loss of rhythm. There are two ways the Jets can go with their running game this week to get the rhythm back.

''You spread them out and run it, and the other is trying to get two backs in the backfield, which has been our forte,'' Hackett said. ''This was the first time in three weeks that the two-back running wasn't giving us what we wanted. You look at the tape and say, 'Oh, we're a little off here, a little there.'

''I'm not going to overreact to it, but what we did in the first half is the way we envision ourselves playing.''